


The terrible calculus of sacrifice

by Hopeful_monster



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Advice, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Sacrifice Arcadia Bay Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_monster/pseuds/Hopeful_monster
Summary: Max chose Chloe, but after seeing what the storm has done to her family Chloe isn't sure she made the right decision. Advice comes from a source she would least expect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> No Totem this week. Here's a oneshot instead.  
> The Title is a nod to a line from Twilit's excellent story Life is Hard (and No One Understands) by ( http://archiveofourown.org/works/5275565/chapters/12174383 ). Read it if you haven't already.

“Erh, David can I ask you for some … advice?” 

 

 Chloe was standing in the door way of Joyce's hospital room, shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets,  nervously looking at anything but her mother who was lying on the bed, swathed in bandages and with wires and tubes sticking out of her undamaged side. What was visible of her face was still and missing the usual smile she wore so effortlessly, instead her face seemed empty. She was seemingly devoid of life in spite of the slow rise and fall of her chest and the constant bleeping of the machines.  

 

“ Huh?” Was all David could manage, startled not only from the stupor he was in, but by what Chloe had said. She had called him by his name, not ‘Step-douche’ or ‘Sergeant Pepper’ or any of the hundreds of other hurtful nicknames she could come up with on the fly. She was also not her normal abrasive self, this could have just been due to the physical and mental exhaustion of the last few days, but it didn't seem likely. Mainly this was because she was asking him for advice. She had never done that before, and any advice he had given her had been violently and vocally rejected. “What?”  

 

“ You've been in …you know, … life and death situations before. I…during… never mind.” Chloe had stumbled through the words, unable to find the right ones, before she  turned to leave.  

 

“Please, Chloe talk to me,” David asked as even from behind David could tell how worried and dejected she was.  Chloe stopped, and turned back into the darkened room. She walked past both David and her mother to stand by the window. She took a deep breath, perching on  the window frame and stared out into the darkness.  

 

“ During the storm, I … was going to save Joyce. I would have died, but mom wouldn't be ….like,” unable to go on she gestured to the bed. She took another breath, this one more raggedy than the last as emotions battled within her.  

 

 “ Max… stopped me. She would not let me die to save them. Me the stoner, high school dropout. I'm  useless, worthless. I'm nothing.”  

 

Chloe's voice  rose and fell  unevenly as she described herself, but the last sentence was a whisper. After a moments silence. Her voice returned with the confidence of a 19 year old who knows everything, but the wretchedness of someone who has had everything, everyone she had loved taken from her. Father, two best friends ( one twice given the state Max was in after collapsing earlier) and now mother. “ If she had just let me die, none of this would have happened and Joyce would be fine.”  

 

Though Chloe had not asked anything specific but she wanted, no needed, help understanding and coming to terms with what had happened. The problem was that David  was at a lose as to where to begin withdrawing the mountains of issues the girl was suffering from. He could almost see the darkness swirling around her, threatening to suffocate her. Looking at her he could see no way to get through to her, no way past the darkness. She turned to Joyce, what would say. What would she do… 

 

“ Would she?.” David haltingly said, breaking the silence that had fallen in the room, “be fine that is. She's lost … A husband already, how would she feel if  she lost her daughter as well?” He paused to give her time  to reach her own conclusions. Outright telling her never worked before so he was trying a new approach. Once he could see the beginning of comprehension he continued.  

 

“She would not be ‘fine’, she never could be after that. No parent could be fine after losing a child.” Even Chloe picked up that he was including himself in that description. The slight wobble in his voice, the way he couldn't look at her. While a week ago she would have laughed or spat in his face at the idea, now she just sat there in thought. Maybe Joyce was right, maybe the Caulfield girl was a good influence on her.  

 

“When Joyce wakes up she'll tell you the same thing.” Despite his best efforts the ‘when’ sounded like an ‘if’. Both sat silently for a while, trying not to think about what might happen.  

 

“Maybe,” she said reluctantly, “ But I made my best friend chose between saving me or becoming a mass murder…”  

 

“ **NO”** David barked out, surprising both Chloe and himself. His normal scowl when near Chloe, or even the more melancholic expression he had been wearing since the storm had been replaced by one of  self doubt, worry and a hint of panic. He calmed slightly and apologised, “Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. It's just, no, your friend Maxine...” 

 

“Max,” she interrupted without even thinking “never Maxine.”  

 

“Max isn't a … killer, she was doing what she could in a terrible  situation.”  

 

“What the fuck do you know? You weren't there.” Chloe snapped back, returning to her usual toxic attitude, closed off body language and the sneer that creased it's way across what should have been a pretty face. David he stumped forwards, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor. His whole posture was defeated.  

 

“Chloe can I tell you a story please?” 

 

“What am I? A fucking twelve year old?”  

 

“Please, just listen.” David said in not as an order, nor even a request. David was pleading with Chloe, begging her to listen just this once. While she may have had despised him a week ago, after Jefferstain and Presscunt, she couldn't hate him. She turned to stare out the window.  

 

“Get the hell on with it.”  

 

“It was back when I was in the army. Me and my squad were sent out on patrol to some town twenty clicks from base. Couldn't pronounce the name even if I tried.  Patrols are simple walk arounds, look for things that may cause a problem, guard our interpreter while he talked with the locals. It wasn't hugely taxing, but there was always the possibility it could turn into a Charlie Foxtrot.”  

 

David's tone had settled into the more subdued voice he had been speaking in since the storm  but his eyes, normally alert and finding trouble even if it didn't exist, were staring at nothing. If anything he was looking in time, not space.   

 

“ Our usual translated was off, fool stood on a nail, so we were paired with a British solider call Jones, or ‘Jonesy’ as he liked to be called. He had the filthiest mouth and a worst  sense of humour I have ever known, you would have liked him.” A small smile played across his lips remembering the man.  

 

“After three hours of patrolling things were going well, we’d seized some fake id’s, helped clear a traffic accident and got a tip on a possible insurgent cell in another town. It happened as we were walking down a street while , Jonesy was telling us a disgusting joke. Something about a flying helmet, a stick of celery and an egg whisk. Just as he was getting to the punchline he got  shot. It must of hit an artery as the blood sprayed across the road. I grabbed him  and put pressure on the wound like I had been trained to. Mac and me dragged him into the nearest building. I heard Jack radio for back up, but by the time any could arrive it would all have been over.”  

 

The last sentences were delivered in the same tone of voice as before. The same factual tone as if he was describing what he ate for breakfast. No theatrics or dramatic pauses, just stating facts as plain as day. Chloe didn't say anything, she wasn't sure if she could.  

 

“ It was difficult, but I managed to get a dressing out of my kit while Mac covered the door. It helped, be if I left Jonesy he would have died. I could hear the gunfire outside, but I focused on him, keeping him alive. By the time back up arrive everyone but me was either dead or injured. If I had helped in the firefight others may have lived, Bob, Nick, Casey. Others may have been spared from being injured, but the only thing I could think of was the life in front of me.”  

 

David stopped speaking to stare at his shoes. After a couple dozen heartbeats he made attempts to say something, failing until finally looked up and management to ask,  

 

“Did I kill them? Did I do the right thing?”  

 

The question was not rhetorical, sarcastic or ironic. It was genuine, from someone who didn't know the answer and was hoping for the truth.  Looking into his eyes she saw the same expression she had seen many times in Max's eyes after the storm. A look of utter desolation, loneliness searching for even a sliver of hope.  

 

Though it was probably only a second or two  to Chloe it felt so much longer, much, much longer. She turned way, unable to face him or the memories of Max anymore.  

 

“Shit, I dunno. Don't think there was a right thing to do.” She though of Max at the lighthouse. She had made Chloe her priority, focusing on saving the one life she could. The one life she was 100% positive she could save, rather than the other lives that Chloe's death may have possibly  saved. While Chloe had been certain that her death would have saved everyone, physically at least, now she was not so sure. Yeah she had spouted some crap about the chaos theory, but that came some crappy dinosaur movie she had watched while stoned.  

 

“You don't know what would have happened if you helped the others, you saved someone's  life. That's the important thing. You didn't abandon him, she didn't abandon me.” The last bit came out as a whisper that even Chloe could barely hear.  

 

"I've gotta go see Max.” Chloe stood up and walked to the door purposely but stopped before leaving. She didn't look at David, but said “Thanks for talking to me, it helped.”  

 

After she left David let out a long sigh as all the tension left his body. He wasn't sure how much was from just being in the same room as Chloe, which usually lead to a blazing row, or from remembering that day. He turned too look at his wife who still lay there, unmoving. David wasn't sure but he would swear she looked more peaceful than before.  

**Author's Note:**

> This story was a way of getting my feelings and thoughts about the why I picked Sacrifice Bay ending. While the several glasses of whiskey may have been a factor the two main ones where a version of the hypocratic oath, and a lack of evidence.  
> I have done a lot of first aid courses over my life and when approaching an emergency you are taught to look out for danger so you don't add to the body count by trying to help, even if it means not helping people. Doctors have the hypocratic oath 'help or do no harm', and after saving Chloe's life so may times I ( and Max) had the chance to do it again, so we did. We saved a life.  
> We may have been able to save more, yes, but since the evidence was so flimsy I wasn't going to risk it. Yes the wierd stuff happened around the same time as Chloe 'died' in the bathroom, but:  
> a) the Vision came first. Without the first vision we wouldn't have been in the toilet to save/not save Chloe, so it seems highly unlikely that the effect would be felt before the cause happened.  
> b) Correlation does not infer causality. Just because everything is happening together doesn't mean it is linked.  
> c) The effects happened in multiple timelines. In the 'save William' timeline weird shit was still happening, so whatever is happening is not linked to saving Chloe in the bathroom.  
> e) The sources of the link. The two people who suggest that there may be a link between the shooting and the tornado are the 'Queen of self destuctive urges' Chloe Price, who probably feels as guilty as sin for putting her best friend through a week of hell, and 'Mr I'm not a scientist, I just play one'. Neither are the most relaible sources.  
> f) Chaos Theory. Small changes cause large effects make it impossible to predict the future. Not difficult, not improbible, IMPOSSIBLE. There was no guarrette letting Chloe die would save the Bay.  
> g) The wording. It didn't say 'Save the bay' it said 'Sacrifice Chloe', making it sound like saving the Bay wasn't guarretted 
> 
> For those of you shouting at the screen 'Replay the game and choose the other option to see you were wrong' i cant hear you, and that is applying Game logic to your playthrought, which I try to avoid.


End file.
